In a bid to stem water wastage in the country, a group of Grade 10 learners from Mathari High School in Limpopo have developed a project which uses cellphones to control water usage.
Through the Project Water Conversation, learners devised a method where two cell phones are used to correspond when using water in the bathtub or kitchen sink. Explaining how the method works, Camellia Mashele, 16, says: “When I call cell phone A or send a call back to cell phone A, it will send a signal to cell phone B to close the valve. We also have a level sensor, which stops the flow of water once it has reached the required level.” Camellia adds that the model can also be used as an alarm. “We can set an alarm on cellphone A, which will determine when the water must start to flow and also set another alarm on cell phone B to determine the duration of the water flow,” explained Mashele. The learners say they decided to use a technology savvy model because people have become “lazy”. “We used this because people use a lot of remote controls these days, so our model will be appealing because it uses cell phones, you won’t have to get up and do it yourself, you just call,” another learner from the group, Edgar Nukeri adds.
The learners, who are from the Mathari Cross village, acknowledged that cell phone signal was their biggest challenge when developing their model.
